!!! A C T I O N A L E R T !!!

April 18, 2005

Tell your representative to oppose the regressive Bush energy policy!

SEND AN E-MAIL NOW via Public Citizen's Web site!
http://action.citizen.org/pc/mail/oneclick...alertid=7436916

The anti-consumer, anti-environment omnibus energy bill (H.R. 6, "The
Energy Policy Act of 2005") that failed to become law in the past two
sessions of Congress is once again being debated in the U.S. House of
Representatives. Despite the myriad reasons that this perennial package
of polluter pork was rejected previously, the current energy bill is
composed of more of the same bad policies that support the fossil fuel
and nuclear industries -- plus some new harmful provisions -- with even
fewer policies that would promote renewable energy, energy efficiency,
conservation, and improved automobile fuel economy.

A vote by the entire House could happen as soon as this Thursday, April
21. Contact your representative TODAY and urge him or her to oppose this
terrible energy bill!

Go to this URL for Public Citizen's section-by-section analysis of the
energy bill:
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_...es.cfm?ID=13247

_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/

Last night in after hours discussions (after 10 pm) House republicans spoke about the energy bill.

One amendment would prevent states and local goverments from prohibiting liquified natural gas facilities from being built in their communities. Only federal agencies can rule on these.

Republicans used to be for states' rights. They are no longer traditional republicans. They are for big government and big brother telling us what to do.

Bush promotes energy policy
Prods Congress to pass it to help wean U.S. off imported oil
Thursday, April 21, 2005

By Jim VandeHei and Justin Blum, The Washington Post

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05111/491779.stm

..........As Bush spoke, the House began debating an energy bill that includes $8.1 billion in tax breaks, mainly for big energy companies; permits oil drilling in part of Alaska's wildlife refuge; and provides legal protections to producers of the gasoline additive MTBE, which is blamed for contaminating drinking water.....

Bush, whose energy plan has been stalled in Congress for four years, is facing increased pressure from Democrats and a coalition of conservatives to do much more to promote alternative energy sources and more efficient vehicles this year.....

Democrats, calling energy prices a "crisis" that is jeopardizing the nation's economic and national security, are urging Bush to support more generous incentives to businesses to produce alternative fuels and to consumers to use them.

"The issue today is not that the president doesn't understand the problem, it's that he has no solutions," said Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., who lost to Bush in 2004. "The energy plan he continues to campaign for will make us more dependent on foreign oil, it will keep gas prices at record highs instead of making them affordable for consumers, and it will make our air and water more polluted instead of investing in a cleaner future."

At the same time, several Republican foreign policy experts, political operatives and Christian conservative leaders are quietly lobbying Bush and Congress to do some of the things that Kerry and Democrats are advocating, and more. This group includes Frank Gaffney Jr., a Reagan administration defense official; R. James Woolsey, a former director of central intelligence; and Gary Bauer, president of American Values, a Christian group.

They want Bush to spend as much as $12 billion over the next four years to subsidize efforts by companies to build flexible-fuel vehicles and electric cars, add pumps for alternative fuels to 25 percent of the nation's filling stations and build plants that produce non-petroleum fuels, among other things. "This is an area where the president could leave a significant historical contribution before his term is over," Bauer said.

Contact your representatives now.

The republicans want to give liability protection to MTBE manufacturers and oil companies who cause drinking water contamination from leaking underground tanks. The US government would subsidize these companies $2 billion. This is unfunded mandates that republicans denounced in 1994 by their Contract with America. Local governments would have to pay to clean up the contamination. The republicans wouldn't allow it brought up in committee so the democrats used a republican rule to discuss unfunded mandates. The republicans were caught off-guard. They don't want to vote on this particular issue. Tom Delay has pushed this through.

The republicans also want to prohibit local governments from restricting LNG facilities.

http://www.house.gov

Do you think that they're finally starting to realize that they're on the wrong side of the issue. High gas prices and global warming are not popular and would hurt Republicans.

I thought I would include this article about James Baker as an interesting side note.







http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/030705EA.shtml

202-585-3886 democrats
202-585-3887 independents

Call C-span with your comments on MTBE

Another republican amendment will allow oil industries to get out of paying most of their drilling royalties for deep drilling sites on government lands.

Republican callers to C-span are blindly supporting Bush.

Don't they know that Bush said yesterday that he does not think the oil companies need any more subsidies?

How do you get in to C-span? I have never been able to get anything but a busy signal.

C-span lines are busy until they take your call. Sometimes it is easier to email them.

Email:
journal@c-span.org

http://www.c-span.org/about/contact.asp?code=About

http://www.house.gov

The senate will do a bill by June. Conference with House in July.

Write to your congresspersons and letters to editors.

Point out the hypocrisy of republicans who are now for big government, protecting polluters, increasing local taxes, reducing state and local rights and federal unfunded mandates.

C-span has opened phone lines again.

Congress is now voting on final bill. So far, 40 democrats are voting for it.

Make your displeasure know to those 41 democrats who voted for this energy bill and any republicans who are your representatives.

H.R. 6 --- 249 for 183 against

http://clerk.house.gov/legisAct/votes.html

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/index.asp

*** P R E S S R E L E A S E ***

April 21, 2005
Contact: Michele Boyd (202) 454-5134

NRC's Proposed Fine Against Nuclear Operator FirstEnergy Does Not
Absolve Agency of Its Failures; Lax Regulation Led to Serious Safety
Violations at Ohio Nuclear Plant

STATEMENT of Wenonah Hauter, Director, Public Citizen's Critical Mass
Energy and Environment Program:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) proposed $5.45 million
fine, announced today, against FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company for
safety violations at its Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio,
is too little too late, and it does not forgive the NRC for failing to
properly enforce its own regulations.

Both the NRC and FirstEnergy are at fault in the mismanagement that
allowed severe degradation of the nuclear reactor vessel head to go
unnoticed for years until it was finally discovered in March 2002 that a
mere three-eighths of an inch of metal cladding was all that contained
the hot reactor core, a dire situation that could have easily led to a
reactor breach and potential meltdown. The fine against FirstEnergy is
deserved, to be sure, but it does not correct the NRC's troubling
emphasis on plant performance and profitability, which inhibited an
earlier shutdown and inspection of the troubled plant.

A December 2002 report by the NRC's inspector general (IG) found that
the NRC's decision to allow the continued operation of Davis-Besse "was
driven in large part by a desire to lessen the financial impact on FENOC
[FirstEnergy] that would result from an early shutdown." The IG further
concluded that the "NRC appears to have informally established an
unreasonably high burden of requiring absolute proof of a safety
problem, versus lack of reasonable assurance of maintaining public
health and safety, before it will act to shut down a power plant."

While the proposed fine is significant -- the largest ever proposed by
the NRC -- it does not correct a heavily pro-industry bias that has
compromised the agency's capacity for effective regulatory oversight and
discipline. The NRC allowed the Davis-Besse plant to restart in March
2004, and it has recently approved a slew of power uprates (increases in
power generation) and license renewals for operators of stressed, aging
nuclear plants, indicating a preference for performance over robust and
thorough regulation.

FirstEnergy should be disciplined for its mismanagement, and the fine
is deserved, but more stringent oversight by the NRC is the key to
preventing the kind of malfeasance that nearly led to disaster in Ohio.

###

Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization
based in Washington, D.C.

Uncle Roy:

Good post on the energy bill. It's good that you drew attention to this issue.

As for the Wenonah post:



Problems were found at Davis Besse. They were put into NRC's category 5 which is the worst rating to be in. After spending many millions of dollars and being down for about 2 years the problems were corrected and they restarted.

She states that this is the highest fine ever issued, 5.45 million dollars, but she wants further punitive action. No real justification was given on her part for further punitive action. Her biased opinion is fine, but some logical reasoning should be used for the basis of her conclusions and not just be her desires.

By the way, First Energy is the company that did not properly maintain transmission line relays and started the East coast blackout a few years back. It's pretty obvious that this company does have a short term profit oriented outlook. This is wrong. Additional fines probably wouldn't cure this. All the management would do is to squeeze the people working for them a bit harder for an additional 5.45 million dollars and keep their high pay and bonuses.

I know that there is more intensive NRC inspection after the Davis Besse incident. Although no accident occurred at Davis Besse, the additional regulatory scrutiny was needed.

Your link to energy bill information certainly revealed that special interest groups have bought a politician or three in Washington.

US Court Rules Energy Task Force Records Will Remain Secret Bloomberg

EVERYTHING is for sale in America....including the Constitution! So eat, drink and
be merry......because.
-----------------

Apocalypse Soon, By Robert S. McNamara

Foreign Policy
May/June 2005 Issue

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2829

Robert McNamara is worried. He knows how close we've come. His counsel helped the Kennedy administration avert nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today, he believes the United States must no longer rely on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. To do so is immoral, illegal, and dreadfully dangerous.

It is time-well past time, in my view-for the United States to cease its Cold War-style reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. At the risk of appearing simplistic and provocative, I would characterize current U.S. nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous. The risk of an accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch is unacceptably high. Far from reducing these risks, the Bush administration has signaled that it is committed to keeping the U.S. nuclear arsenal as a mainstay of its military power-a commitment that is simultaneously eroding the international norms that have limited the spread of nuclear weapons and fissile materials for 50 years. Much of the current U.S. nuclear policy has been in place since before I was secretary of defense, and it has only grown more dangerous and diplomatically destructive in the intervening years.

Today, the United States has deployed approximately 4,500 strategic, offensive nuclear warheads. Russia has roughly 3,800. The strategic forces of Britain, France, and China are considerably smaller, with 200-400 nuclear weapons in each state's arsenal. The new nuclear states of Pakistan and India have fewer than 100 weapons each. North Korea now claims to have developed nuclear weapons, and U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that Pyongyang has enough fissile material for 2-8 bombs.

How destructive are these weapons? The average U.S. warhead has a destructive power 20 times that of the Hiroshima bomb. Of the 8,000 active or operational U.S. warheads, 2,000 are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on 15 minutes' warning. How are these weapons to be used? The United States has never endorsed the policy of "no first use," not during my seven years as secretary or since. We have been and remain prepared to initiate the use of nuclear weapons-by the decision of one person, the president-against either a nuclear or nonnuclear enemy whenever we believe it is in our interest to do so. For decades, U.S. nuclear forces have been sufficiently strong to absorb a first strike and then inflict "unacceptable" damage on an opponent. This has been and (so long as we face a nuclear-armed, potential adversary) must continue to be the foundation of our nuclear deterrent.

In my time as secretary of defense, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) carried with him a secure telephone, no matter where he went, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The telephone of the commander, whose headquarters were in Omaha, Nebraska, was linked to the underground command post of the North American Defense Command, deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, in Colorado, and to the U.S. president, wherever he happened to be. The president always had at hand nuclear release codes in the so-called football, a briefcase carried for the president at all times by a U.S. military officer.

The SAC commander's orders were to answer the telephone by no later than the end of the third ring. If it rang, and he was informed that a nuclear attack of enemy ballistic missiles appeared to be under way, he was allowed 2 to 3 minutes to decide whether the warning was valid (over the years, the United States has received many false warnings), and if so, how the United States should respond. He was then given approximately 10 minutes to determine what to recommend, to locate and advise the president, permit the president to discuss the situation with two or three close advisors (presumably the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and to receive the president's decision and pass it immediately, along with the codes, to the launch sites. The president essentially had two options: He could decide to ride out the attack and defer until later any decision to launch a retaliatory strike. Or, he could order an immediate retaliatory strike, from a menu of options, thereby launching U.S. weapons that were targeted on the opponent's military-industrial assets. Our opponents in Moscow presumably had and have similar arrangements.

The whole situation seems so bizarre as to be beyond belief. On any given day, as we go about our business, the president is prepared to make a decision within 20 minutes that could launch one of the most devastating weapons in the world. To declare war requires an act of congress, but to launch a nuclear holocaust requires 20 minutes' deliberation by the president and his advisors. But that is what we have lived with for 40 years. With very few changes, this system remains largely intact, including the "football," the president's constant companion.

I was able to change some of these dangerous policies and procedures. My colleagues and I started arms control talks; we installed safeguards to reduce the risk of unauthorized launches; we added options to the nuclear war plans so that the president did not have to choose between an all-or-nothing response, and we eliminated the vulnerable and provocative nuclear missiles in Turkey. I wish I had done more, but we were in the midst of the Cold War, and our options were limited.

The United States and our NATO allies faced a strong Soviet and Warsaw Pact conventional threat. Many of the allies (and some in Washington as well) felt strongly that preserving the U.S. option of launching a first strike was necessary for the sake of keeping the Soviets at bay. What is shocking is that today, more than a decade after the end of the Cold War, the basic U.S. nuclear policy is unchanged. It has not adapted to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Plans and procedures have not been revised to make the United States or other countries less likely to push the button. At a minimum, we should remove all strategic nuclear weapons from "hair-trigger" alert, as others have recommended, including Gen. George Lee Butler, the last commander of SAC. That simple change would greatly reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear launch. It would also signal to other states that the United States is taking steps to end its reliance on nuclear weapons

more....

* See also: NucNews Links and Archives (by date) at http://nucnews.net *
(Posted for educational and research purposes only, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107) *

Yes, you can even sell nuclear waste management processes that have never been tested even in the lab. Imagine that!

Proggy.
The only thing you are selling....is your ignorance, stupidity and conceit!

Beats selling fire insurance... and quackery...

Why whatever do you mean?

Do I say that your process would not work? Nosirree, I don't say that.

If you wish to school me in my ignorance about your process, I am all ears. Have you tested your process or have you not? I saw nothing on any of your posts here or on your website saying that you had tested it in a lab, or built a working prototype. If you tested it, may I see the results? If you haven't, why not?

Global warming reports edited Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription), MN

It looks like the Senate will pass the Bush energy plan this week. Bush will claim a big victory while his poll numbers are in the dumps.

The Cantrell energy reduction amendment failed last week. Maintaining liability for MTBE contamination may fail. New nuclear power plants will be built.

Contact your senators today.

http://www.senate.gov

The bill is over 1000 pages.

How many senators actually read this travesty of taxpayer dollars???

Press conference now on C-span 2.

Nuclear, clean coal and hydrogen technology take precidence over conservation.

No global warming actions.

No vehicle fuel reduction.

Don't know what happened to the MTBE liability exemption which the House added.

PORK -
it's what's for congress.

C-span had a guest on this weekend who wrote a magazine article about government "pork". States in the shape of a pig highlighted the article.

I think the man was from The Center for Public Integrity.

The press asked the energy secretary if the WH would be present during the House/Senate conference discussions to help them along.

This a violation of separation of powers! The energy secretary didn't give a direct answer.

The democrats sold out America on energy and judges.

We need a third party.

The bill still has to go to conference. You can still make comments.

Senate Overwhelmingly Passes Energy Bill

Updated 10:55 AM ET June 28, 2005
By H. JOSEF HEBERT

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...8b0m9ig0&src=ap

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate overwhelmingly approved energy legislation embraced by both Republicans and Democrats Tuesday, but hard bargaining looms with House GOP leaders who favor measures more favorable to industry.

After finishing most work on the bill late last week, the Senate approved the sweeping legislation 85-12. It includes a proposed $18 billion in energy tax breaks, an expansion of ethanol use and measures aimed at increasing natural gas imports to meet growing demand.

But lawmakers acknowledged that the measure would do little, if anything, in the short run to stem the soaring cost of energy including oil that this week has eclipsed $60 a barrel and gasoline that last week averaged $2.22 a gallon at the pump, according to the Energy Department.

"We still have many hurdles to overcome," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who led the Democrats in fashioning the massive bill. The bill passed by the House in April differs sharply from the Senate legislation over oil production and the degree of emphasis on conservation.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the Senate bill would usher in "a new policy for the United States ... that energy should be clean, renewable and that we have conservation" to curtail energy demand. He said it would help assure a broad mix of energy sources in the future from nuclear power to wind energy.

But the Senate deliberately skirted some of the most contentious energy issues facing Congress.

The legislation says nothing about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, although that's a top priority of the Bush administration. The House-passed bill calls for developing the refuge and assumes $2.6 billion over 10 years in federal revenue from refuge oil lease sales.

And unlike the House bill, it is silent on giving aid to larger oil companies and refiners who want protection against environmental lawsuits because one of their products, the gasoline additive MTBE, has contaminated drinking water in hundreds of communities. House leaders have insisted an MTBE waiver be part of energy legislation.

The Senate twice before in the last four years has passed energy legislation only to see the effort fall apart without a final agreement. Both GOP and Democratic lawmakers predicted that if a compromise is to be reached with the House and also be acceptable to the Senate, it will require in the close involvement of the White House.

President Bush has called on Congress to give him an energy bill by August. Most senators believe that is unrealistic, given the expected difficult discussions still ahead.

More environmentally friendly than the energy bill passed by the House in April, the Senate measure would funnel 40 percent of some $18 billion in tax breaks over 10 years to boost renewable energy sources such as wind and biomass. The Senate bill also would try to reduce energy consumption through tax incentives for efficient appliances and homes and for gas-electric hybrid cars.

Other fights are expected with the House over how much corn-based ethanol refiners would have to use _ 8 million gallons a year in the Senate version vs. 5 million under the House bill _ and whether utilities should have to produce at least 10 percent of their electricity from wind, solar or other renewable energy sources.

The cost of the Senate package also is expected to be an issue.

It would cost $16 billion over 10 years, according to a preliminary analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, compared to about $8 billion for the House bill. The White House wanted a $6.7 billion price tag. The House version is somewhat misleading, however, since it relies on $2.6 billion in revenue, not yet certain to be approved, from oil leases in the Alaska wildfire refuge.

"It's going to be a tough conference (with the House)," said Domenici, who as the bill's floor leader had seen months of tough negotiations go for naught two years ago.

The Senate also passed energy legislation in 2002, when Democrats were in the majority, but saw efforts to get a compromise with the House evaporate when Republicans regained their majority in the Senate.

The Senate bill, cobbled together during months of behind-the-scenes discussions and two weeks of floor debate, was viewed by its supporters as an attempt to expand and diversify the country's energy supply and reduce its reliance on oil.

Nuclear is a global warming action.